house the cars. >> i'm steve and what should the president do. food for thought for ed rendell. >> who could have predicted a full-pledged international crisis. both are in crisis mode. >> i'm toure. we're going to take a time-out with the molly ringwald at the table. >> you're in "the cycle" for thursday, september 13th. today anti-american anger is inflamed across the middle east and north africa. protests allegedly sparked by that obscure anti-islam film spread across the region, now including yemen, iran, sudan and tunisia.

riot police uted tear gas and water cannons to drive them back. secretary of state hillary clinton says the u.s. is closely watching the developments in yemen and across the region. >> we certainly hope and expect that there will be steps taken to avoid violence and prevent the escalation of protests into violence. >> protestors are back for a third day of riots in cairo, egypt where mass demonstrations are planned for tomorrow. all non-emergency personnel have been ordered out of libya. the pentagon has an additional warship off the libyan coast and a second one will arrive today. president obama spoke to the leaders from yemen and libya last night and asked for the assist en. today we learned one of the identity of the american security guards killed in libya.

glen doherty was a private security guard and former navy s.e.a.l. nbc jim maceda is on the ground in cairo. there are calls there, so what's the mood there today? >> reporter: hi. well, those calls for mass protests come from none other than the president himself, mohamed morsi. however, in the same statement, in the same breath almost he demanded that the protests be peaceful and dignifiedignified. he said his government would not tolerate violent protests. the riot police vant stopped the protestors who again all day today have been throwing stones at police, throwing tear gas canisters back at riot police, who have shot them with it. it's been a cat-and-mouse standoff all day. i hope you can hear me over the

sounds of the ambulances and police going by below. the good news is that the u.s. embassy grounds with all of this chaos have not been breached again, but there is just to no sense the violence is abating. in fact, according to the ministry of health at least 224 have been injured and received treatment so far. the mood is defiant amongst the protestors, but people here are always worries about these fridays, especially when there's a call to come out in the hundred of thousands. anything can happen. there is deep, broad support and this has to be underlined amongst the security forces for the cause behind the protest for the film. egyptians are appalled by the film that triggered all of this. at the same time, the vast majority of people that we talked to in the streets say there's enough violence here, and they are shocked by the deaths of the american diplom s diplomats. we will see tomorrow how it plays out. >> sounds like a volatile

situation there. jim maceda, place stay safe. joining us now is reva bell. and the author of "how to be secular." reva, i want to start with you. david i go anyway shus writing in the "washington post" had an interesting take on what was going behind the protests particularly in libya and egypt. he wrote what's happen inning cairo and benghazi is a case of political opportunism by salafist islamic extrooemists who are unhappy with the success that more moderate islamist and secular in egypt and libya have had in building political support. do you agree with that statement? >> absolutely. there's a lot of intraislamic competition like the muslim brotherhood trying to take

leadership in the arab world and coming to the political rise in egypt and spreading. and also the more extremely actors who also have more space to operate in the post-arab spring world. there are other broader, strategic exploitations taking place in response to this video. egypt is a really good case study for that. just looking at how many different players are nervous about the transformation with egypt with much of the old guard retiring and now the islamists asserts themselves. you have christians very nervous about that. you have elements of the military not happy with the situation. here lies an opportunity to try to make the muslim brotherhood-led government appear more fanatic. that's a tough balance for the brotherhood to try to maintain and try to play to these religious persuasions and also trying to maintain its relationship with the u.s.

as we saw today with president obama, he made a very unusual statement in which he said that egypt is neither an ally or enemy, which will catch interest in the region, especially for israel. >> i want to play a clip from one of the them and ask you a question about it. take a look. >> we have the greatest respect for people of faith. to us, to me personally, this video is disgusting and rerehenrere reprehensible. violence has no place in religion and is no way to honor religion. >> jacques, we had many reports now that those protests have been organized for weeks, in fact, and were originally slated to oppose the imprisonment of the salafic sheikh that bombed

the world trade center in 1993. why are we, meaning the west and specifically this administration, treating this as an issue of religious tolerance, free speech, and pinning it to this video when clearly the video is being used as a cover really to just sort of incite these protests and in some case violence? >> i think we're making a mistake there. i don't think it's a question of religious tolerance and freedom, even though whenever we approach the arab world, we constantly sfeek in those terms. one thing we might try considering is referring to those other parts of the first amendment, the part about abridging freedom of speech, which is a central american value. in foreign policy we have interests and values. maybe as regards the middle east, we let our interests race ahead of our valuing. this is where our values are shouted down by ourselves. freedom is speech is special to

the american experiment of liberty is about. >> the president said egypt is neither an ally or an enemy. we have a couple of countries that fall into that nether space. how do we deal the young democracy we have to put in that space of neither ally or enemy? >> as my colleague said, along the lines of that, the u.s. doesn't have friends. it has interests. right now with the current government in place, especially in a place like egypt, as strategic a country that is, the u.s. has an expectation that democratic regime also means someone that is going to act in the same way many pursuing u.s. strategic interests like the mubarak era government did. of course, there are disappointments there. the government in egypt's support derives from the street. it can't nane the same foreign policy situations, so this is a tense time with the u.s. really

being the glue between israel and egypt in that peace agreement. israel cannot afford a break between the united states and egypt when it comes too maintaining that peace treat treaty. >> jacques on the point about the government and egypt being responsive to the mood of the street, we're talking about how sort of reluctant morsi has been to issue a really sort of clear denuns yags of what happened and how to sort of discourage the protests. i want to put this picture on the screen. this is in libya. there was a young man who held up a sign after the attacks that said, sorry, people of america, this is not the behavior of our islam and prophet. there's an attitude on the street in libya. on you prevalent is that attitude in the muslim world and why you don't hear more it? >> it's prevalent but there's complete chaos and confusion there. we had the director of intelligence who referred to the

muslim brotherhood in egypt as largely secular. we use these distinctions, and i quite honest don't think we as americans have a very, very accurate understanding of what these parties think about when they think the united states. it's becoming very, very clear that the value system beverage, the value of freedom of expression in particular, are not shared by the majority of the populations in these countries. this is a problem that the state department has to begin addressing as opposed to religious freem dom all the time. >> whether it's al qaeda in yemen, al qaeda, of course, looks for opportunities of unrest and uprisings and chaos to exploit those weaknesses. i was a few years ago in northern africa talking to people on the ground who said that al qaeda was already creeping into morocco of all places. isn't our interest broader than

just the stability of these governments and our assets there, but also in limiting al qaeda's reach as these sort of hot cauldron zones bubble up around northern africa and the middle east? >> certainly. it's a prime tonight for jihadists operating in the region. they're finding new opportunities in places like syria and lebanon as those countries destabilize. i would also look at iran in this element, because iran has been on the defensive ever since syria really came into play. we've seen that the u.s. has gotten cold feet when it comes to arming the syrian rebellion, especially looking at libyan rebels heavily armed. they were once the face of this air rack democracy, and that's causing a lot of of nervousness in the region. if iran wants to exacerbate those concerns, this is a great time to do that to play up the

fears. we've seen in iraq they respond to the video and threaten to target u.s. attorneys. >> all right, thank you for helping us make sense of this. the white house handling of all of this could make-or-break the re-election hopes. ed rendell joins the conversation as "the cycle" rolls on for thursday, september 13th. woman 1: this isn't just another election. we're voting for...

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i want people around the world to hear me, to all those that would do us harm. no act of terror will go unpunished. it will not dim the light of the values that we proudly present

to the rest of the world. no act of violence shakes the resolve of the united states of america. >> 54 days until the presidential election, and the white house is in crisis mode. from israel to egypt to iran, president obama has a delicate and potentially explosive foreign policy mess on his hands. in the guest spot today, nbc news political analyst and former head of the democratic party, governor ed rendell. governor, this basically started tuesday night as a major international story. it's been about 36 hours. what's your basic sense right now on how obama has been handling things so far? >> well, i think so far so good. i think it's important to understand that in situations like this, the best government or the best politics is the best government. i don't think that the white house should do anything politically oriented. i think they should keep their eye on the ball, govern well and do the right thing and follow secretary clinton's add mon nigs

that came out early in the morning on the first day where she said the u.s. must be clear-eyed in the face of grief, and that's true. the stakes are high. let's govern well and govern responsibly and make sure the country knows that barack obama is a leader for difficult times and for crises. >> it seems, though, you know, he's gotten pretty positive reviews for his response so far. if you look at the politics of it, contrast that with what happened with mitt romney and the initial statement and the uproar over that. this is a volatile situation. as this unfolds, is this the kind of think where there's a potential region-wide for this spiral out of control in a way obama becoming powerless to address it? >> sure. there's always a chance that some things happen beyond the control of the american president or the american government. the key, though, is even if that happens, is for us not to overreact. i heard governor romney and i heard congressman ryan say

america should act with strength. well, those are good words, but how do they translate into concrete action? what would you do differently than what the president is doing now and the secretary of state is sdodoing now? that's the question. it's easy to have flourishing rhetoric. >> governor, how does this play with voters? are they going to see the world is oud of control or hold onto this guy, or we have to make a switch? >> i think this actually plays to the president's advantage. if it distracts voters from the economy and focuses on world affairs, i think the president in the minds of ordinary americans has done very well in world aaffaffaiaffairs. for the republican charging that he's weak. he gets criticized for the tax. he's operated from a position of maximum strengths, although from the first day he took office and we blue the pirates out of the

water. i think it's his ballfield. it's the ball field that even with the crisis he wants to play in. barack obama's strength, i think, is that he's a leader that doesn't panic. that he's smart and in control. that he listening to people like secretary of state clinton, and that i think he's a perfect crisis leader. this plays to his strength. the american people don't want to go to war in the middle east again. they don't want a third war. they don't want -- they want us to be strong, and my constituents have said to me in the streets although with tears in their eyes and say how can this happen in benghazi when we saved all those people from being executed? it's a good, tough question. i think it's importance to emphasize it wasn't the libyan government that had anything to do with this. it may have been inspired by al qaeda or some extremist groups, and we've got to be careful about a response when we know who did it, the response should be swift and certain.

we have to be careful about that response. >> governor, if we could turn to romney's political response, which i think you could classify as poor as the very best, ari berman a couple months ago pointed out over 70% of romney's 40 foreign policy advisers worked for president bush, and i have to think they're none too pleased with the way history judged their foreign policy approach under bush. do you think their strategic vision has been clouded by upset over the way that the public has judged their foreign policy approach? >> sure. i think there's no question about that. governor romney can take advice, but he has to make the decision himself. most times as governor i followed the advice of my advisers and chief of staff. sometimes i thought my response of different and better and i stuck with it.

the governor has to realize the american people are looking for leadership. they're looking for a calm response. barack obama's election in the first place owed himself greatly to his response to the financial crisis, which was calm and in control compared to senator mccain's that looked like it was rushing to judgment and making rash statements. before lehman brothers, john mccain was aahead by two points in the national poll. >> right. >> governor, i was talk to a former bush white house official earlier today who said -- i heard this from a couple of people now. who said in the next few days we might see hillary clinton start to take some heat for this simply because she was the secretary of state and these all involve state department assets. she seems to me politically absolutely untouchable right now. she's had a very good few years, and she's certainly well poised and well respected.

do you think anticipate that coming back to her or ultimately do you think the president will sort of shoulder most of the decisions and the rhetoric and the leadership in this? >> well, the two democrats ththat i'd love the reps ublicans to attack are senator clinton and secretary of state clinton. i think they have a favorable opinion of both. i think hillary clinton set the right tone, and the original embassy statement that becamere forget and governor romney is ingenuous about, that statement was four or five hours before any violence took place, and it was a preemptive effort to say, look, we abhor films like this. we respect religion. we have muslim americans here in the united states. we value them and cherish them. there are muslim americans that died in the twin towers.

>> obama walked that statement back. >> it's set aside for daily prayer worshipping. to make that statement i think was correct. >> governor, obama eventually walked that statement back and said, it's not our position. so i'm just wondering -- >> not in our position in the wake of subsequent violence. certainly it is a position that we respect and value all religion and therefore the united states government abhors films like the film that is at controversy here. does anybody want to speak up and say that film's a great idea? >> no. i don't think so. no. >> raise your hand, republicans. >> well, thank you for joining us. you're a "cycle" regular. we'll see you soon. up next, foreign policy gets personal. obama versus romney on the u.s. and the world. we're sitting on a bunch of shale gas.

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i have observed that there's a tendency to shoot before you aim, as i pointed out. as president my obligation is to focus on security for our people, making sure that we gather all the facts. >> that sounds familiar. the president there paraphrasing our good friend steve kornaki's take on the response. this is the first real opportunity we've had to see the difference in how romney and obama would handle those 3:00 a.m. phone calms and the political fight over foreign policy is shaping up in front of our eyes. mitt romney paints the president as weak, soft and a detriment to global prominence. the president is painting romney

as inexperienced, tone-deaf and even ignorant. who is right and who is winning the message war. let's run it through the spin cycle. certainly the romney camp me a huge error in jumping the gun and reiterating their initial statements and getting the facts wrong. as it is situation continues to unfold and as things get messier in the region, it gets more complicated for the president going forward. unlike the lehman brothers siation, now he's the president. he should be in control here. he has a couple of advantages, too. on the flipside, he's the president, and we are looking at foreign policy. he looks presidential just by nature of actually being the president. number two, people already trust him on foreign policy more than they trust governor romney, and he has as you pointed out hillary clinton who is beloved and seen as doing a fantastic job as secretary of state. the other thing i would say i remember remembering back in 2008, there was an e-mail that

throated around of obama looking straight beinto the ram saying everybody chill the f out. i got this. at that moment all those appears aloof, suddenly that sense of calm that he gave off was exactly what the country was looking for in a moment of crisis. i think that's what we're also seeing right now. >> as we surf around this morning, two comments jumped out at me. peggy noonan, at a moment of crisis like this,ening it's a water's edge moment. everybody should cool it, absorb, thing and say only serious and meaningful things and never allow themselves to look like they use it as a political opportunity. romney looked weak today, and after decades of republicans being strong especially on the issue of foreign policy, it is devastating for someone from the right to call romney or any republican weak, especially on foreign policy. that's out of character what we

expect from the gop. the other comment is a bit more fun, but from the left. gail collins at "the new york times" today, organizers can come into full bloom and feel free to worry about anything from obama. he'd declare war and refuse to come out until there's a tax cut and hand the country over to alien. she's saying this can make you nervous about the way mitt romney would handle foreign policy. if this guy wins, it could freak us out. part of the thing is that he's looking impetuous here and looking unpresidential. if there were the first time, then it would be excusable, but it's really not, right? we talked about what happened in london, and we said, is it going to last a week or a month? i famously remember somebody said it won't last a week, but it now seems to be that crumb

that got dropped in the first act of the movie, and now we're in the fourth act of the movie. like, oh, wow. here we are again. >> right. so i understand your point, that if it weren't the first time, but after the first time you cemented the narrative, this guy isn't ready. i remember the flap over london when he came back. i said, look, maybe he wasn't television and pr savvy. he said it from a position of being an expert on the subject. he comes back, and it was the thing that made him unready to be president. some people have already sealed that narrative down regardless, and this, which i admitted yesterday, was not the best way for mitt romney to handle it. i mean, i think only the developments of this story over the next few months are going to tell whether this is a waterloo moment for mitt romney and all the hyperventilating from gail

collins is worthy, or if this is really just a hiccup in the campaign and he can sort of get disciplined again and move forward. >> important question for toure. did she work in the dog in the roof into the column? she normally does that. >> that narrative the long cemented. >> yeah. the interesting thing about what romney did here, this has been a race about from his standpoint about the economy. his chanceshe winning the election hinge on economic anxiety so high and people wanting to throw the incumbent out. it reminds me of the last incumbent that lost re-election, and that was george bush sr. in 1992. he looked at that race, and george bush sr. had a huge, gaping advantage on foreign policy. the berlin wall fell on his watch, soviet union crumbled apart and he prosecuted the first gulf war. there was a poll that said clinton versus bush, who would do a better job on foreign policy? it was 73-20 in bush's favor. that's the definition of a

foreign policy mismatch. what clinton did in that pam contain, it was a lopsided victory was he seeded the foreign policy argument it to george xwush. he did not say i had issues with how it was issued. he said this guy is a good foreign policy president, but who is going to help nu your everyday lives, and that's what i want to talk to you about. i thought that would be the motto romney would follow. it's fascinating he decided to pick this fight when he didn't have to. >> they call it the kitchen sink approach. who would have guessed when the week began that the middle east would be all that anyone is talking about? up next, we've got another country threatening to catch us off guard, china.

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going to make that any different. >> when americans buy product from walmart, i want them to remember the children, the family, the workers. >> this will end badly for all of us. everybody is so short-term in thinking and in their ten tur they're willing to take chances right for today and they know in their minds and bad for memory tomorrow. >> china is responsible for wiping out a good deal of the manufacturing that we had in ohio. >> that last person you heard from is congressman tim ryan of ohio. he's featured in a powerful documentary titled" death by china." foreign policy is front and center right now with the uprising in the middle east. you can't talk foreign policy without talking about china. since they joined the world trade organization, more than

50,000 american factories have shut down. 25 million americans are out of work and can't find a decent job and take on 3 trillion worth of our debt. as you heard in that clip, that can be due whenever the chinese demand it. this afternoon the federal reserve announced an open-ended qe-3 with low interest rates sp buying up more bonds until 2015. in fact, the fed says it will keep spending and spending until unemployment goes down. peter navarro is the filmmaker behind death by china and congressman ryan is with us. what's your reaction to the fed's decision on qe-3? >> well, i think it's actually a necessary evil myself, because the congress won't get off their hands and actually do what the fed has been calling for and every sensible economist has been calling for. that is, fiscal investments into the country. roads, bridges, plugging the

hole with police and fire cuts and educational cuts at the local level. that's how to really stimulate the economy and get things moving. the fed has been begging the congress to do something, but because we have tea party control here in the congress, we can't get anybody to get off their hands and try to pass president obama's jobs program. >> peter, i tend to agree with the congressman's assessment there. the fed needed to act, especially in the absence of congressional action. there are concerns that qe-3 may not be effective, even with it being put out there indefinitely, that we'll continue to do this until unemployment gets down to what rate. i wanted to see your perspective. yooung qe-3 will be effective? >> it will be as effective as the last one. it's not working. the reason it's not working is we don't have a manufacturing base anymore. germany has 25% of their work force in manufacturing. we're down to 9%. the problem with trying to do

some some of cyclical fiscal or monetary stimulus in the absence of a manufacturing base is you have nothing to stimulate. the whole point of lower interest rates is to stimute domestic investment, and all the investment our big companies are doing like boeing and caterpillar and gm is offshore. so what i'm doing with the death by china tour in ohio and we had a great town hall event in youngstown with congressman ryan, is to try to explain that the best jobs program really is trade reform with china, cracking down on china's unfair trade practices and not more government stimulus. we got to get our manufacturing base back. i was in mansfield last night, and unbolting the machines, there was a steel mill area, ak steel. half of that mill was sent over, lock, stock and barrel to china, and that mill is now competing against american workers in places like mansfield.

it's insanity. >> let's talk about china for a minute. according to state media, the china's missing leader-to-be refur fased after a 13-day absence in which he missed several meetings with foreign dignitaries like hillary clinton. china's communist party seems to be in chaos. this is exactly the right moment for the u.s. to go and sort of press china on all the things we want, or is it the worst moment to do that? >> it's the best possible moment. china is facing a crisis just like we are because of the following. china's an export-led parasitic economy, and over the last ten years it has drained the blood not just out of the united states but also of europe. its two biggest customers. with these two economies flat on their back, china's export machine is throwing down. what the communist party is quite fearful of and quite

rightly is political turmoil. i've said for many years now that strength in the chinese currency, which is congressman ryan wants to do with the ryan-murphy currency bill would help american manufacturers, but chinese consumers by give them more purchasing power. china has to build up the base if it coexists with the rest of the world. heck, yeah, this is the time for both presidential candidates in ohio throughout this country to say, hey, we're going to crack down on china's currency manipulation and unfair trade practices and getting our manufacturing jobs back and be prus prus again. >> you know how important china is to people in ohio. it is disspiriting to you china is not part of the presidential conversation at all? >> of course it is. a lot of us don't have any control as we can tell how the topics have shifted over the last couple of days. what peter is doing, what the

"death by china" movie is doing, it's saying all these different economic tax policies we keep talking about, p if we don't address the 800-pound gorilla in the middle of the room, we can't have the kind of middle class we used to have in cities like youngs stoun and akron. we need good-paying jobs here. i think president obama has been better than most and would be better than governor romney. he put tariffs on oil companies, tubular goods, tires and solar panels. we're taking steps in the right direction. if we don't have a comprehensive manufacturing policy in the united states to where all of these new immigrants coming in, all of the working class people in places like highways can't go to work with their hands, make a good living, have a pension, have benefits and good health care and throw a little bit of money into the basket on sunday at church, those are the middle class jobs we need back. it takes a comprehensive manufacturing policy and being extremely firm on china and not

letting them cheat whether it's intellectual property, human rights, religious freedom, economics. all across the board they cheat on these issues, and i love this movie with peter. not because i'm in it, but i think it hits the nail on the head on one of the most fundamental issues that define our country for the next decades. >> every administration talks tough on china, and then somehow that talk goes away. we'll see if anything changed in 2012. thanks so much for joining us. >> thank you, thank you. to libya and egypt, we've had quite a serious hour on "the cycle." up next a little break from the turmoil on foreign policy. molly ringwald is here, and toure is pumped, let me tell you. ♪ [ sneezes ] [ male announcer ] if you have yet to master the quiet sneeze... ♪ [ sneezes ] [ male announcer ] you may be an allergy muddler. try zyrtec®. it gives you powerful allergy relief. and zyrtec® is different than claritin®

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childhood and young gen x. sometimes you meet people you like for a long time, so it's an honor to welcome molly ringwald to the table. thank you for coming. >> thank you for having me. >> she's written a novel called "when it happens to you." congrats on that. >> thank you. >> it's a big change in your life, and it's hard. i wrote two novels. one got published and one didn't. it still hurts, not getting one published. why did you write a novel, and are there any parallels from being an actress. >> i've always been interested in character. it's the thing that's drawn me to whoever i work on. if the characters aren't interesting and flawed, i'm not interested. i think that i just try to bring that approach to my writing. it's not too -- it is a transition, but i did write a nonfiction book before this one. so i had a writing practice in place, so i just tried to -- >> those are entirely different

disciplines, the nonfiction and the fiction where you have to paint the pictures and all that stuff. >> i found fiction a lot easier. >> really? >> yeah. for me it was easier because i found it very freeing, you know. you didn't have to write things exactly the way that they have write things exactly the way they that happened. this is all fiction, they're all made up characters, it just sort of set me free. >> let's look at the breakfast club again for the second, because that really captures what genx was about. also with john hughes was able to do. but now that we're old enough to be the principal, is it gen x? >> aren't we on y or z or

something? i think everything is different now, for me the internet just changed everything, particularly as an actor, if i had to go through what younger actors are doing toda i can't say i would have chosen that career. you're not judged on your work, you're really judged on your lifestyle. you're held up to a standard that most people aren't held up to. >> you were able to do the films, right? it wasn't sort of u.s. weekly, if you're walking to the grocery store, we loved you because you made some great movies. >> i can't say that the paparazzi didn't exist when i started. >> we got our fair amount of attention. the brat pack existed because i think it was a new york magazine

piece, that i wasn't even in. but it is different, i think it's a lot harder now and i think, like i said, i don't know that i would have chosen the same career. if it was that way. >> we were just talking, you're a mother of three. has being a mom impacted the way that you look at the world? the way that your writing process unfolded? your character development? are your kids in a sense in your book? >> well, i definitely think that being a parent changes the way that you view the world. i mean without question. some of them are great parents, you know, they have a different attitude. so i think can you tell me why

your -- john hughes just really had a genius for writing teenaged characters. >> i think if another film comes along that is good. >> congratulations on the book. molly ringwald, thank you for being here. ♪ don't you forget about me. don't, don't, don't you, forget about me. s simple physics... a body at rest tends to stay at rest... while a body in motion tends to stay in motion. staying active can actually ease arthritis symptoms. but if you have arthritis,

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an apology for america's values is never a great choice. >> mitt romney says that president obama needs to learn how to be an american. this is going to be part of his stump speech. it's basically romney's attempt to paint the president as other, different, un-american, without actually going down the socialist radical. the most frequent example held up as the president apologizing for america, is taken from a speech given to -- the french. here's a section of it. there are times when america has

shown arrogance and been dismissive. instead of recognizing the good that america so often does not world, there have been times that europeans choose to plame america for much of what's bad. even the alleged apology from the egyptian embassy wasn't really a policy, rejecting the content of a bigoted andy muslim film. it's certainly not apologizing for america. but i have to ask, why is the very active apologizing seen as such a terrible thing? we are a great nation, an exceptional nation, a great force for work in the world. who's perfect? no one is. we weren't perfect when he invaded iraq under a false pretense p and with no plan for handling reconstruction after mission accomplished.

admitting these failures and, yes, apologizing for them doesn't diminish us or amount to a rebuke of our national character. being an exceptional nation means holding ones self-to a high -- national self-interest, but also with our national values. john kerry said it best at the dnc. >> we are exceptional, not because we say we are, but because we do exceptional things. we break out of the great depression, win two world wars, save lives fighting aids, pull people out of poverty to defend freedom. go to the moon and produce exceptional people who even give their riglives for exceptional rights and even human rights.